Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans by Gary Krist

Living in New Orleans has always been dangerous. Hurricanes, flooding, and tropical diseases were among the natural dangers present even before widespread settlement. As a busy port for French and Spanish colonies, it attracted many rough characters and supported a booming vice economy. Some histories portray the city as racially tolerant before it become a part of the U.S. and less so when it really succumbed to Southern culture. It had notorious slave markets. By the 1880s, it had a bad reputation that business people and upper crust New Orleanians wished to improve. Novelist-turned-historian Gary Krist recounts a struggle for law and order in the city in Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans.

As he did in his Chicago book City of Scoundrels, Krist weaves together stories of crime, politics, and culture and how they shaped a city's future. Unlike that previous book in which the events occurred in twelve days, Empire of Sin is a story spanning decades and including many characters, including saloon owner and state representative Tom Anderson, brothel owner Josie Arlington, and young jazz musician Louis Armstrong. Some of the most interesting of the characters were trying to profit from vice while living in the respectable part of New Orleans.

I listened to Empire of Sin on an audiobook read by actor and frequent book narrator Robertson Dean. It was a pleasure.

Krist, Gary. Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans. Crown Publishers, 2014. 416p. ISBN 9780770437060

Audiobook: Dreamscape Media, 2014. 9 compact discs. ISBN 9781633793231.

Death of a Chimney Sweep: A Hamish MacBeth Mystery by M. C. Beaton

A chimney sweep was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is unclear whether he was the first to die in this entertaining mystery set in Scotland, but he gets top billing on its book cover. The mystery to solve is who is responsible for a series of murders that take place across the Scottish countryside and as far away as Latin America. With incompetence in the higher ranks of the police, it is up to local constable Hamish Macbeth to identify the murderer.

Hamish is supported in his effort by a colorful group of townsfolk and former fiancees and is hampered by a chief inspector who tries to keep him off the case. He is often accompanied by his faithful dog and cat. Keep an eye on that cat.

I enjoyed the interplay of the entertaining characters and how the plot turned unexpectedly at several points. I also liked how the story went well beyond the solving of the mystery to inform readers of what became of the players. Finally, I enjoyed the Scottish-toned narration by Graeme Malcolm. I have a new series for my gardening-time audiobooks.

Beaton, M. C. Death of a Chimney Sweep: A Hamish MacBeth Mystery. Audio Go, 2010, 2011. 5 compact discs. ISBN 9781602839311.

The Girl from Human Street: Ghosts of Memory in a Jewish Family by Roger Cohen

In the case of The Girl from Human Street: Ghosts of Memory in a Jewish Family by Roger Cohen, the subtitle is a better indicator of its subject than the title. Cohen's book is not focused on one person who came from a particular place, that being a neighborhood in Johannesburg, South Africa. Instead, the book is a sweeping family history, recounting the lives of the author's ancestors and their descendants in Lithuania, South Africa, England, the United States, and Israel. In one sense the book is a where-I-came-from memoir, but it is much more. Through telling about his family, Cohen recounts the global story of Jewish people from the late 19th century to the present.

Having now finished, it is hard to remember the point at which Cohen starts his story, for he goes back and forth in time and from place to place frequently. The reader has to stay alert to track the various members of his mother's and father's families as they migrate to new lands that promise greater freedoms and a chance of fortune. The true starting point of the family was the Lithuanian shtetls of Zagare and Siauliai. Many of those who stayed there survived pogroms only to exterminated by the Nazis in World War II. Many of those who move suffer new injustices and mental illness in new lands.

In its lyrical telling, The Girl from Human Street reminds me of The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal. Both stories evoke both pride and regret for the past actions of families. Both will help readers get beyond textbook histories of the modern world.

Cohen, Roger. The Girl from Human Street: Ghosts of Memory in a Jewish Family. Alfred A. Knopf, 2015. 304p. ISBN 9780307594662.

Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine and the Miracle That Set Them Free by Hector Tobar

I enjoyed its reviews in newspapers and podcasts, and Bonnie and other readers whose opinions I trust recommended this book. I remember the story from 2010 as amazing and compelling. The probability that I would enjoy Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine and the Miracle That Set Them Free by Hector Tobar was high. The only reason that I have taken so long in starting is my to-read list is long. (I started to say over-populated, but you can not have too many books in your reading queue.)

Luckily for me, Bonnie borrowed the 11 disc audiobook of Deep Down Dark so I could listen while driving, cooking, and gardening. Henry Leyva is a great reader. I like how he moved easily from English to Spanish and back in this book, pacing well, and distinguishing different voices effectively. Of course, with 33 men in the collapsed Chilean mine and numerous important figures on the surface above, the task for the writer and the narrator to make each of them singularly memorable is impossible. Still I felt the voices were right as I heard them.

What I did not expect was the amount of the story that takes place after the miners were discovered to still be alive and after they were rescued. The one part of the story I would have like to be more detailed is the actual day of rescue. I am glad Tobar recounts about his interviews and tells how the miners have fared since the ordeal.

I would happily read Deep Down Dark again if it is chosen for our book group. If you wonder about conditions in mines and want a dramatic tale with suspense, even when you know the outcome, You may also like this disaster rescue story.

Tobar, Hector. Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine and the Miracle That Set Them Free. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014. 309p. ISBN 9780374280604. 

Audiobook: Macmillan Audio, 2014. 11 compact discs. ISBN 9781427244505.

How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World by Steven Johnson

Groundbreaking Reads: Ideas That Shook the World is the theme of the adult summer reading program at the Thomas Ford Memorial Library. Our intent is to inspire readers by emphasizing innovations that led to literary, scientific, political, and cultural developments. In some cases, books themselves are groundbreaking. We feature many of these books on our suggested reading lists, but we also highlight books that tell the story of progress. Such a book is How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World by Steven Johnson.

Johnson's book was bestseller in 2014 and the companion to his highly-entertaining six-part PBS series. In both the book and the televised series, Johnson tells the stories of these concepts:

• Clean
• Time
• Glass
• Light
• Cold
• Sound

My favorite chapter may be Cold. Johnson shows how someone's idea of cutting ice from frozen ponds to store until summer led to shipping it to the tropics. Once that started someone else perfected insulating the hold for the ice and another on making artificial cold by heat removal, both of which led to refrigerators. The idea of chilling food led to cooling spaces with air conditioning (or the other way around). Air conditioning led to people being able to live more comfortably in tropical and desert regions, starting a migration to states like Florida, Texas, Arizona, and California. All because someone cut ice from ponds.

Being about technology, it is appropriate that How We Got to Now is available in many formats. All facilitate optimism and love of innovation.

Johnson, Steven. How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World. Riverhead Books, 2014. 293p. ISBN 9781594632969.

Audiobook: Penguin Audio, 2014. 5 discs. ISBN 9781611763386

DVD: PBS, 2014. 2 discs. ISBN 9781627890366

Truth and Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett

I have often heard that most authors are not good audiobook readers. I wonder if memoirists are an exception. In the last year, I have listened to Dick Van Dyke, and Michael Chabon read about their lives and enjoyed their storytelling. In each case, I felt the memoirist was talking with me. I enjoyed the same feeling with Truth and Beauty: A Friendship written and read by Ann Patchett. Having been to two of Patchett's library conferences programs, I expected her reading to be entertaining. Having listened, "entertaining" is not a word I now want to use because the book is so sad. I'd rather say that her reading is mesmerizing.

I did not know the subject of Truth and Beauty when I downloaded it to my old iTouch. I saw it was an older title that I had overlooked. The various library audiobook services to which I have access all seem to have a scarcity of good nonfiction titles to interest me, so I sometimes try books I might otherwise decline. Within minutes of beginning Truth and Beauty, I knew the subject, for I read Lucy Grealy's Autobiography of a Face in 2012. I did not recall that she was Patchett's friend, but friendship was not a focus of that memoir. It was more about alienation, loneliness, and the hardships of cancer and cancer treatment. Patchett's account works as a welcomed continuation of the story.

It has taken me over a week to start writing this review. I am still not exactly sure how I feel about Patchett's role in the story. How can she have been so accommodating to her troubled friend over so many years? Could I have been so generous if a friend continued on a self-destructive path? Did her kindness delay Grealy's ultimate end? Patchett tells the story with little if any analysis. She has left judging for readers, and for that reason, I think her title is a great book for discussions.

Starting the story at a date when Grealy and Patchett shared the same dream as well as the same apartment in Iowa City where they attended the Iowa Writer's Workshop sets us up to compare their fates, much in the way we make similar comparisons in reading The Other Wes Moore. What factors made the differences? I suggest looking at the mothers in both books. What else do you see?

Patchett, Ann. Truth and Beauty: A Friendship. Harper Audio, 2004. 7 compact discs. ISBN 0060755997.

The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights by Steve Sheinkin

With Black History Month in February, now is a good time to read The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights. This mostly forgotten story about segregation in the military during World War II recounts events that preceded the well-reported integration of major league baseball in 1947 and the civil rights protests of the 1950s and 1960s. The author Steve Sheinkin poses that the courage of the black sailors who refused to load ships Naval ships with bombs and ammunition days after an explosion that killed 320 black sailors gave direction to later civil rights efforts.

On July 17, 1944 at San Francisco Bay's Port Chicago, only black sailors died because only black sailors were on the docks loading Naval ships at the port. Many of them had wanted to be on battle ships in the Pacific, but the Navy had refused to assign them. Instead, they were assigned to very dangerous work for which they had no formal training. White commanders pressed them to load heavy weapons with increasing speed. According to some accounts, disaster was inevitable.

Few whites noticed the story of the disaster in newspapers filled with other war stories. Black newspapers and the NAACP noticed. The latter sent its attorney Thurgood Marshall to defend the 50 sailors who refused to load ships until safety issues were addressed.

A key part of The Port Chicago 50 is the military trial with examination of witnesses and impassioned arguments by the prosecutors and defending attorneys. After weeks of proceedings, the 50 were all found guilty within minutes and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. Sheinkin recounts appeal efforts and how the men were very quietly released after the war ended.

The Port Chicago 50 is aimed at young readers by the same author who won awards for The Bomb. It is worth reading in print with illustrations or as an audiobook by readers of all ages.

Sheinkin, Steve. The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights. Roaring Brook Press, 2014. 200p. ISBN 9781596437968.

audiobook: Listening Library, 2014. 3 compact discs. ISBN 9780804167444.

JFK's Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President by Thurston Clarke

Over time, stories of decades often are reduced to key events. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy is certainly one of those events. It tops the list of pivotal moments in the 1960s, a decade of great promise and disappointment. In JFK's Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President, author Thurston Clarke expands the story of the early 1960s, reminding older readers of the complex national and international politics of the Kennedy White House.

Like many history books focusing on specific time frames, JFK's Last Hundred Days includes many stories from outside its focus. Clarke includes accounts of John F. Kennedy's childhood, youth, service in World War II, early political career, marriage, and first two years as president. These accounts are inserted as flashbacks as Clarke counts down the days to Kennedy's visit to Dallas in November 1963. In doing thus, Clarke makes almost every day rich and lively. Deep in details, though I certainly knew the outcome of the story and noticed foreshadowing, the assassination still seemed to spring on me as a reader.

Clarke's attitude toward his subject is apparent from the title. What might not be expected by readers is how thoroughly the author describes Kennedy's faults, such as vanity, recklessness toward personal safety, and adultery. Whether the reader leaves the book with a positive, negative, or mixed attitude may depend more on the reader than the author's story. Clarke seems to tell us everything.

Like all good history, JFK's Last Hundred Days is still relevant. Readers may rethink whether today's politics is really meaner than ever before. They may also question whether promises to keep American soldiers out of combat zones will be kept. The audiobook is a good option for busy readers.

Clarke, Thurston. JFK's Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President. Penguin Press, 2013. 432p. ISBN 9781594204258.

Audiobook. Penguin Audio, 2013. 12 compact discs. ISBN 9781611761719.

My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead

These were my questions before I listened to My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead, read by Kate Reading:

Would I find a book about a woman's relationship to a single book interesting?

How much of Middlemarch by George Eliot would I remember?

Despite reading several strong reviews and hearing another on National Public Radio, I wondered if My Life in Middlemarch could retain my interest through eight audio discs. The topic seemed rather narrow. I need not have worried. The subject matter as presented is broader than it first appears. I would estimate Mead's book is 45 percent about George Eliot, 35 percent about the characters and events in Middlemarch, and 20 percent about Mead herself. Of course, it is all tied together in such a way that any one paragraph or even sentence could be about all three. The story keeps turning and evolving so that specific topics are fresh. I never wavered in my desire to keep listening.

It has been a long time since I read Middlemarch - obviously before I started a spreadsheet of my reading in 1990 (unless I somehow neglected to enter the book). I also saw the 1994 BBC miniseries twenty years ago. I only remember Patrick Malahide in the role of the cold Reverend Edward Casaubon. Until I looked up the credits, I could not name any others from the cast, though I now see numerous actors that I recognize. Thinking that I remembered little, I wondered whether discussion about the characters would make any sense to me. Again, I need not have worried. Mead introduces the characters through descriptions that stimulate memory. (I don't know how it would be for someone who has no knowledge of Middlemarch.) I remembered much more than I would have thought.

The surprise for me was that the book is about George Eliot more than anything else. At least, that is what I take from My Life in Middlemarch. I think it serves as an entertaining introduction to the 19th century author's life, coming from a scholarly admirer, tempered but still passionate in admiration. I now want to read or listen again to the novels of Eliot. I only see Silas Marner on my spreadsheet. That does not seem right. Surely I have read more. It has been too long.

Mead, Rebecca. My Life in Middlemarch. Crown Publishers, 2014. 293p. ISBN 9780307984760.

Audiobook: Blackstone Audio, 2014. 8 compact discs. ISBN 9781482973532.

My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business: A Memoir by Dick Van Dyke

About half way through listening to My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business by Dick Van Dyke, I wondered what would come next. I was pretty sure that I had seen Van Dyke in something after the original Dick Van Dyke Show and Mary Poppins, but I could not say what. I thought reading about years of his not being in the public eye might be interesting. To my surprise I learned that he has always been a busy showbiz man. I have no idea why the word "Out" is in the title of his book. He seemed to always have a new entertainment project.

Being a Boomer who watched a lot of television in the 1960s and very little after that, I naturally enjoyed the first part of the book the most. Van Dyke tells about growing up in Danville, Illinois, working odd jobs (he was a terrible shoe salesman), and heading to California to comically lip-sync popular songs in night clubs. Getting a radio show in Atlanta led to getting another in New Orleans where he was noticed and then hired by CBS who had no idea what to do with him. As I heard on the audiobook, it all works out splendidly after a few morning wake up shows and lots of car problems.

Van Dyke reads his own book, but it sounds more like he is just telling us what he's been up to. Early on he promises "no dirt" and keeps that promise by 21st century standards. He does, however, bring up topics that would have been edited out if he had written in the 1960s. He is lighthearted even when being frank. He is a good storyteller, and fans will enjoy hearing details of the productions of his famous shows and about his crossing paths with many of his colleagues in later life. My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business was a good companion to a lot of weekend gardening.

Van Dyke, Dick. My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business: A Memoir. Crown Archetype, 2011. 278p. ISBN 9780307592231.

audiobook: Books on Tape, 2011. 6 CDs. ISBN 9780307914323.

The Boy on the Wooden Box: How the Impossible Became Possible ... on Schindler's List: A Memoir by Leon Leyson

Many baby boomers grew up with fathers who never talked about their World War II experiences until late in their lives. Leon Leyson was like them, but instead of being a soldier, he was a Jewish boy in Poland in and out of work camps run by the Nazis throughout the war. In post-war America, he wanted to live in the present and raise his children as average citizens of no particular origin. Only with the release of Stephen Spielberg's epic movie Schindler's List did Leyson begin to tell his incredible story, one bound to interest listeners for it included his working for Oskar Schindler, who saved his family from certain death. He told the story in his posthumously published The Boy on the Wooden Box: How the Impossible Became Possible ... on Schindler's List: A Memoir.

Throughout World War II, Leyson was malnourished and small, not a good candidate for factory work. In the camps, he had to endure through heavy manual labor and show no sign of failing to keep from being executed, as so many children and older adults were. Luckily for Leyson, his father was a skill worker who was able to get the sympathetic Schindler to employ Leon. When Nazi inspectors came through Schindler's factory, he would stand on a box behind equipment to appear larger and capable of the work.

There have been many Holocaust stories written in the last half century, and The Boy on the Wooden Box fares well among them. Leyson told a compelling story with a great cast of characters about one of the most dramatic periods in our recent history. I listened to it read by five-time Tony Award nominated actor Danny Burstein. My interest never wavered.

Leyson, Leon. The Boy on the Wooden Box: How the Impossible Became Possible ... on Schindler's List: A Memoir. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2013. 231p. ISBN 9781442497818.

audiobook. Recorded Books, 2013. 4 compact discs. ISBN 9781740369439.

Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink

I think Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink is one of the most disturbing books that I have read in a long time. While there are no totally evil people on which to blame what may have been unnecessary Hurricane Katrina-related deaths at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans in 2005, many seemingly good people behaved in ways inconsistent with their training and ideals. The doctors and nurses at Memorial were obviously in a crisis and not helped by the shockingly inadequate response of the corporation that owned the hospital, but they let their fears blind them to other courses of action than those that they took. Tragically, they had more resources within easy reach than they realized. Lack of planning and poor communications inside and outside the hospital led to confusion. Patients could have been treated for their diseases and kept more comfortable throughout the crisis. Some might have been saved. Fink tells the story in much fascinating and dramatic detail.

There are many lessons to be learned from Hurricane Katrina stories, but, as the author tells in the later chapters and the appendix to Five Days at Memorial, people are not learning them. Our society does not as a whole have a will to make the sacrifices and do the work necessary to prevent future tragedies. Fink tells how a hospital in New York performed much better in Hurricane Sandy, showing that preparation and clearer thinking can make a difference, but she also reports on many cases in which medical personnel and community emergency workers make the same mistakes made in New Orleans.

Five Days at Memorial is too large a book for many book discussion groups, which is unfortunate as there are so many topics to discuss. Groups that focus on public policy or meet quarterly (giving members more time to read) can tackle it. Five Days at Memorial is a great read for someone willing to make the effort.

Fink, Sheri. Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital. Crown Publishers, 2013. 558p. ISBN 9780307718969.

Unabridged audiobook: Random House Audio, 2013. 14 compact discs. ISBN 9780804128094.

Suffer the Little Children by Donna Leon

I am reading the Donna Leon's novels featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti out of order, getting whatever I can find on audiobooks read by David Collaci. I imagine Collaci now as the voice of the Venetian commissario, and greatly enjoy hearing Italian personal and place names flow from his lips. Venice, where people, streets, and buildings have such beautiful names, is now higher on my travel priorities list.

I know many libraries shelve the Commissario Brunetti books in their mystery sections, but I think I would rather call Leon's works novels that include mysteries. I just finished Suffer the Little Children, in which the identities of people who commit questionable acts are known right away. Gustavo Pedrolli, a pediatrician, admits rather early that he bought a child, and everyone agrees that the carabinieri, a sort of Italian swat force, used excessive and unnecessary force in arresting the doctor. The doctor lies in the hospital for weeks, most charges are dropped, and the case seems to fade away. Some readers may at a point in the middle of the book wonder where Leon is going with her story, but the commissario is still curious and slowly pieces together the rather surprising reasons the carabinieri stormed into the sleeping doctor's bedroom.

Leon's story is especially rich with her descriptions of Italian social classes, the city's institutions, and, of course, food. There is always a variety of classic Venetian dishes, desserts, and Italian wines consumed in the leisurely telling of Brunetti's cases. I often hardly care whether the case is solved. Putting the solution off lets me stay with the commissario and his delightful family longer. Sadly, the books do end, but there is a good supply of them. Look for them at your library.

Leon, Donna. Suffer the Little Children. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2007. 264p. ISBN 9780871139603.

7 compact discs: BBC Audio, 2007. 8 hrs 14 min. ISBN 9781602830370.

The Americans: 11 True Stories of Challenge and Wonder narrated by Michael Holmes

When we think of self-publishing, I suspect most of us think of books. In the past these would have been short-run paper books, and more recently they would tend to be ebooks, which might be marketed through any number of online vendors fostering the self-publishing industry. Of course, people also self-publish zines, short for "magazines," or they give their writings away in blogs. What you don't think of is audiobooks. Who has the ability conceive, record, and market high quality audiobooks?

Advertising producer/entrepreneur Michael Holmes has the ability to make his own audiobooks. (Maybe he is more small press publisher than self-publisher because of his company.) He must also have a love for American history and biography. I do not know the back story, but he has recorded biographical profiles for twelve figures from American history. He lightly added a little music and occasional sound effects and called them collectively The Americans: 11 True Stories of Challenge and Wonder. 

Because one of the profiles describes the heroic lives of a couple, runaway slaves William and Ellen Craft, there are eleven stories in The Americans. The profiles run between slightly less than ten minutes to nearly twenty-three minutes. At 9:45, the story Amelia Earhart seems too brief to me, just as her real life must have seemed to her fans. Otherwise, I enjoyed the profiles narrated by Holmes. I especially appreciated learning about some lesser-known characters, including the aforementioned Crafts, dentist William Morton, Civil War spy Lafayette Baker, and the first woman to be licensed as a physician in the United States, Elizabeth Blackwell.

Other figures profiled were Butch Cassidy, Annie Oakley, Samuel Clemens, Dorothea Dix, P.T. Barnum, and Francis Scott Key. The only quality that I know they all shared was being memorable characters. That we have such a diversity in our country may be the point. I think a short audio introduction about the collection as track one would be a nice addition if there are further editions.

There is a 5 minute sample on Holmes' website.

The Americans will be enjoyed by regular listeners to audiobooks or podcasts. I do not see that any libraries yet have the audiobook, but it is found at Audible.com or through Amazon.com (which owns Audible.com). Amazon also has the title as an ebook.

One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson

To learn what happened in the summer of 1927 - perhaps your parents or grandparents were born that year - you could go to a library that still has newspaper microfilm, which you could slowly scan reel by reel. It might take you weeks to read it all. As an alternative, you could read the 1927 issues of Time magazine*, which was a fairly new publication. That would save you a little time over the newspapers. What I suggest, however, is that you read or listen to Bill Bryson's One Summer: America, 1927. You'll save much time and be humorously entertained.

The ever-bright Bryson presents 1927 as a pivotal year in American history, showing that many great events did occur during the warmer months of that year, which Bryson stretches from May into October. That stretch of the idea of summer may seem beyond dictionary definition, but it is fair as none of the major summer stories really resulted from the action of just one day or even week. Most took months to settle. Cheerfully Bryson introduces, develops, and eventually concludes many of the most-reported stories of that summer:

• Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic and his struggle with fame
• the murder trial of husband-slayer Ruth Snyder 
• the lengthy Western States vacation of President Calvin Coolidge 
• Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig's season-long home run contest 
• the no-government-funds-will-be-used relief campaign for Mississippi River flood victims directed by Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover 
• the somewhat-disputed outcome of the second Dempsey-Tunney "exhibition" (prize fight) in Chicago 
• Henry Ford's abruptly stopping of production of the Model T to retool his factories for a new unnamed automobile which led to a shortage of stock in showrooms across the country
• Al Jolson's starring in the first talkie, The Jazz Singer 
• Al Capone's public appearances and his statements about the popularity of vices in Chicago 

That is not all. There are too many story lines to mention all here, but this list gives you an idea of how many big splashy headlines there were that year. (There was also one important unreported story -
four international bankers, representing the U.S., Great Britain, France, and Germany, secretly establishing policies that would lead to the 1929 crash of stock markets.) Bryson works his way through the summer, dealing out entertaining installments of all of these stories.
I especially liked a change-of-pace chapter Bryson devotes to the books of 1927. Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner, and other authors that we still read were writing, but bestseller lists were dominated by authors who we no longer recognize, except for Zane Grey and William Rice Burroughs. Grey and Burroughs get detailed Bryson-style biographical profiles. Bryson also concludes the book with obituaries of major and minor figures from the year. The last to die was Anne Morrow Lindbergh in 2001.

I lived in Bryson's 1927 for about a week, and 2013 seems very futuristic now. Not everything has changed, however. Bankers are still causing lots of trouble.

Bryson, Bill. One Summer: America, 1927. Doubleday, 2013. 509p. ISBN 9780767919401. 

Audiobook. Books on Tape, 2013. 14 compact discs. ISBN 9780804127356.

* Bryson gleefully reveals the repetitively bad writing in 1927 issues of Time magazine at several points in his book.

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

When Cheryl Strayed finally reached the Bridge of the Gods across the Columbia River, ending her trek up the Pacific Crest Trail, she was both happy with her accomplishment and sad that her adventure was at an end. She had found strength that she did not know she had, survived dangerous situations, and encountered a great variety of people, many of whom helped her reach her destination. Her feet were sore, and she relished the idea of eating well again, but she wondered what she would do with her life, still almost penniless and without a plan.

I too am a bit happy and sad having now finished her book Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail. I knew that she would survive and was pretty sure that she reached her goal by the fact that she had written her book, but I was still relieved to get to witness her completion. I hoped as I read that she would remake her life, associate with more sensible people for a change, overcome addictions, and find meaning in her life. But I will miss her story telling, which made me long to take off on such a trip myself, despite the heat, cold, hunger, and sheer difficulty of the hike. That's not to say I would do things her way. I'd have funds to eat better when I got to the "resorts." But she did not have that luxury.

I listened to Wild read by the winner of 2009 Best Voice in Mystery and Suspense, Bernadette Dunne. Luckily for me, I had much late season gardening and a fairly long drive to attend a meeting, so I could finish the eleven discs in six days.

Though she finishes with a quick what-has-happened-to-me-since, I think she may have a good story about how she got on with her life. It might be harder to write and not as easy to sell to the reading public, but little was really resolved just by the hike. There must be more. Her collection of essays Tiny Beautiful Things might suffice in the meantime.

Strayed, Cheryl. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail. Alfred A. Knopf, 2012. 315p. ISBN 9780307592736.

NPR Sound Treks: Birds

My focus on all things birds continues today with a quick review of NPR Sound Treks: Birds, an audiobook adapted from radio instead of print. In this case, the public radio network has harvest some of its best pieces from programs such as Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition. NPR listeners will recognize some of the reporters, such as Melissa Block, Steve Inskeep, and Renee Montagne, on this enjoyable one-hour, one compact disc program.

I was glad to find three tracks with licensed bird rehabilitator Julie Zickefoose, whom I regard highly after having read her Letters from Eden and The Bluebird Effect. My favorite story in the NPR collection is the final track in which she tells about raising four orphaned hummingbirds. I love the image of her being followed around her backyard by hungry little birds.

Several of the stories involve Chicago, where the lights of skyscrapers are a hazard to night flying birds and invasive species, such as starlings, have chased away natives. Zickefoose tells about rescuing a stunned yellow-throat warbler, and Davis Shaffer tells about Chicago's successful building of houses for purple martins along its Lake Front.

Alaska, Australia, and Guatemala are settings for other stories in this collection, that also features a story about British musician F. Schuyler Mathews who in the 19th century transcribed many songbird songs to sheet music. Bird lovers should definitely seek out NPR Sound Trek: Birds.

NPR Sound Treks: Birds. HighBridge Audio, 2010. ISBN 9781615730605.

Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation's Treasures from the Nazis by Rober M. Edsel

War has always left death and destruction in its wake, but advances in weapons technology and transportation made World War II particularly horrific. Whole cities were flattened and burned by the air forces of Allied and Axis countries. Civilians died in staggering numbers. Understandably, the fate of centuries of art was of little concern to many people who were trying to survive, but a few Allied leaders thought that saving art could foster goodwill, peace, and prosperity in the post-war world. The great paintings and sculptures symbolized shared cultural achievements and were the pride of their nations. With the support of President Roosevelt and General Eisenhower, a branch of the U.S. Army known as Monuments Men were ordered to do what they could to save masterworks of art and architecture. They faced a very great challenge when Allied forces began a campaign to liberate Italy. Robert M. Edsel tells the story in Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation's Treasures from the Nazis.

If the words "Monuments Men" seems familiar to you, you have either heard of Edsel's previous book The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History or the upcoming movie of the same name starring Matt Damon and George Clooney, which is based on Edsel’s book. Saving Italy is a continuation of that story, focusing on efforts to protect the art of Naples, Venice, Rome, Pisa, and Florence. The complicating factor was that the Germans were allies of the Italians and could not steal art as blatantly there as in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, despite Mussolini’s disregard for art. At times there were partisan Italians, Allied agents, and two factions from the German military vying to gain control of displaced paintings, sculptures, pottery, jewelry, and rare books.

Saving Italy is filled with fascinating characters, including dueling American art experts Deane Keller and Fred Hartt, conflicted Nazi S.S. Commander General Karl Wolf, and the unflappable American spymaster Allen Dulles. The fate of paintings and sculptures by Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael, Leonardo, Botticelli, and many other masters was in their hands. I listened to Saving Italy read skillfully by Edoardo Ballerini and found it an exciting read from which I learned much about World War II in Italy.

Edsel, Robert M. Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation's Treasures from the Nazis. Norton, 2013. 454p. ISBN 9780393082418.

Recorded Books, 2013. 10 compact discs. ISBN 9781470371296.

Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women by Harriet Reisen

Louisa May Alcott's life continues to be rewritten, as scholars discover new facts about the author many years after her death in 1888. At the Houghton Library at Harvard University in the 1950s, a researcher looking at letters found that Alcott had written pulp stories under the name A. M. Barnard. More recently, medical experts have discounted the theory that mercury given to treat pneumonia contracted during while nursing Civil War soldiers caused Alcott's poor health over the last half of her life. After reading her journals and letters and seeing a painting in which the artist put a slight butterfly pattern across her face, they think she may have had lupus erythematosus. According to Harriett Reisen in Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women, scholars are also still seeking missing genre stories that Alcott wrote before her great success with novels for children.

What continued to impress me as I read through this biography of Alcott was how she was connected to many of the leading figures of the mid-19th century American literature. In early life, she knew Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, and abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and John Brown. It would not be possible for most young women growing up in poverty to have met all of these people. But the Alcott brand of poverty was a strange condition born of her father's attempts to live a pure life, untainted by owning property, trying to shape a new society from an old order that resisted his ideas. He had followers, but his Utopian experiments always failed, leaving his family hungry and sometimes homeless until friends and rich relatives offered help.

Reisen's lively biography of Alcott is a companion to the documentary shown on PBS's American Masters, for which Reisen wrote the script. It is an entertaining read for anyone who has read Alcott's books or who enjoys 19th century history and biography.

Reisen, Harriet. Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women. Henry Holt and Company, 2009. 362p. ISBN 9780805082999.

11 compact discs. Tantor Audio. ISBN 9781400144457

Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier

The first thing that Ian Frazier tells us in Travels in Siberia is that Siberia is not and has never been a well-defined place. It was never an official state of any kind. It is an idea - a really big idea burdened with myths. It is believed by many to be a desolate, forbidding, unforgiving region, frozen in time forever - a place to which people are banished. All of this is true but that is not all that there is to say. Frazier in his numerous trip to and through the fabled region of Russia also found magic.

At the heart of his book is one long trip across Russia from St. Petersburg in the west to the Pacific port of Vladivostok in the east with two guides, Sergei and Volodya, in an unreliable van. Though Frazier had an advance for a magazine article, he was on a tight budget and the trio slept in tents much of the time. He had not allowed for expensive van repairs either. At one point when the tailpipe fell off, Sergei opportunely walked along the littered highway until he found a suitable replacement. After a few twists of wire, a serviceable repair was made and the trip continued. There were many other auto problems, which strained the mood of the companions.

Away from cities much of the time, the roads were rough broken pavement or gravel. To cross some rivers they loaded the van onto ferries. Through one marshy region without any passable road, they drove into a boxcar and rode in semi-darkness for over 24 hours. During six weeks, they met many people, visited historical sites, and fought many mosquitoes. A very well-traveled man, Frazier said he had never seen mosquitoes as plentiful as in Siberia.

In Travels in Siberia, Frazier also recounts several shorter visits, the last being three-week winter trip because all of the others had been hot summer trips. It was only on the last trip that he finally visited a prison camp and drove across frozen lakes and rivers.

Despite the hardships, Frazier, being a great fan of Russian history and literature, remains optimistic to the end of the book. Readers will find him good company, much in the way of Bill Bryson. They may also discover urges to read about the Decembrists, the many czars of Russia, Aleksandr Pushkin, and Siberian energy reserves. If the hardcover book looks daunting, try Frazier's audiobook. He is a great narrator and will keep you well entertained.

Frazier, Ian. Travels in Siberia. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010. 529p. ISBN 9780374278724.

16 compact discs. Macmillan Audio, 2010. ISBN 9781427210531.